A spiritual mystery scheduled for release on December 2, 2026, is staking a bold claim: that history erased Leonardo da Vinci's mother, and that her story has now been recovered. Mirrors of Time: A Circassian Princess and Secrets of Mona Lisa, written by MELRA and published by Melmar Books Inc., grew out of hypnosis sessions the author underwent in the spring of 1999 in a New York therapist's office. According to the announcement, MELRA, then known as Melinda, sought help for unexplained infertility and instead recalled what she describes as another life as Herminia Yegeruqway, a Circassian princess born in 1436 near Mount Elbrus who, the book says, was the secret mother of a brilliant child named Leonardo.
The announcement positions the book as more than memoir. It offers its own explanations for riddles that have occupied historians and art lovers for five hundred years, including why Leonardo wrote in mirror script, the mystery of the three Mona Lisas, the meaning of letters said to be hidden in the Mona Lisa's eyes, his two-year disappearance, and the spiritual significance of his lost horse statue. According to the book, Herminia's deathbed prophecy held that Leonardo's great horse, destroyed before it was ever cast, would stand again in 500 years; one week after MELRA's sessions ended, on September 10, 1999, the bronze Cavallo di Leonardo was unveiled in Milan.
Why this matters extends beyond one title. The book arrives in a market hungry for historically framed mysteries, positioned for readers of The Alchemist, Life of Pi, The Da Vinci Code and Many Lives, Many Masters. Publishers and booksellers will be watching whether a narrative built on hypnotic recall can hold attention the way archival history does, and whether it reignites public debate over how much of Leonardo's biography remains genuinely unknown. The author says the text was not researched or constructed but dictated in two weeks through self-hypnosis, drawn from what she calls the Universal Mind, after a first attempt fell short and a second was destroyed by accident. A trailer can be viewed at www.mirrors-of-time.com.
The book also carries a spiritual dimension. Born into Circassian paganism, raised by an Orthodox Christian grandfather and later immersed in Sufi mysticism, Herminia is portrayed as a bridge between worlds in her search for the One God, finding Christ at the end of a long life. The volume includes 352 wisdom quotes drawn from the world's religious texts and spiritual traditions and, per the announcement, ranks no road above another and asks no one to believe. MELRA frames the central question openly: "This book is more extraordinary than anything I could have written myself. Memory, or something else entirely? That, like everything else here, is yours to decide."
For readers and retailers, availability is straightforward. Mirrors of Time will be sold in hardcover and softcover on Amazon, while an exclusive limited leather edition is open for pre-order at www.mirrors-of-time.com/shop. The publisher behind the release is Union Ridge Publishing, whose site is listed at https://unionridgepublishing.com. Whether the book is read as revelation or imagination, its arrival ensures one of history's most enduring silences, the identity of Leonardo's mother, will be debated again.
